Week 9 - Hustling
This week, I had several interviews for summer opportunities, submitted some applications, worked a lot, had a stress breakdown (I’m okay now), sculpted a little, did some glaze/slip experimentation, and prepped and loaded a soda.
My line blend came out of the ^10! There wasn’t much (or any, really) color variation from increasing the redart. And as you can see by how light the middle tile is compared to the others plus the different amounts of carbon trapping, the tiles got varying levels of reduction. I think the only difference with the increased amount of redart was a slightly more opaque coverage. If I do another with Dolly’s Russian Hotel shino, I will try subbing newman red clay for redart and test out the same increments. This was my first time firing Dolly’s Russian in the reduction kiln — I’ve only ever fired it in the soda and wood. I am very pleased with this shino and its carbon trapping abilities.
I made a triaxial blend this week with wood ash, native clay from the IUS creek, and nepheline syenite, blending the materials without a base. I am hoping to develop an ash glaze using mostly locally sourced materials, and this is the first testing of that. Ideally, I will source a feldspar from local rocks, but that’s a project for the future. For now I’m using neph sye for its powerful fluxing abilities, since I know the IUS creek clay doesn’t melt on its own at cone 10. I also like the crazing and glassiness that the neph sye will likely bring.
I’ve been slooowly working on this form in the studio plus some functional work for the Cobb wood firing at home when I have the energy.
I decided to paint a red iron oxide wash all over my tall sculpture and layer sieved wood ash slurry on top of it. I’m interested to see how much of it will burn off/how much of my brush strokes will be visible after the firing. Also there was a frickin piece of plaster in my clay (cons of using reclaim) that caused a piece towards the bottom to blow off. Ugh.
don’t mind my paintbrush in the corner of this pic lol
I was originally going to load yesterday (Saturday) but pushed the load/firing back a day due to the weather. There was a tornado warning and crazy hail storm in the early morning (now my new truck is covered in tiny dents) and it was pouring rain all day, which means it was also raining in the kiln yard. I’m so glad I had an extra day to prep, though, because I had time to paint my big piece and play around with a flashing slip on my medium-sized forms. I mixed up a slip I found on glazy called Aubrey’s Flashing Slip, which supposedly works on bisqueware and flashes great in atmospheric environments.
Grolleg Kaolin ………………… 40
Tile #6 Kaolin …………….….. 30
Neph Sye ………………………… 20
Silica …………………………………. 10
+ Ferro Frit 3124 ……………. 5
I added 2% copper carb to one 100g batch and kept the original recipe for the other. I sprayed my forms with the slips (one with the original, one with the 2% cc) plus some a little Malcom Davis carbon trapping shino in areas.
I also made some silly, not-very-precise tests of a mixture of my triaxial blend (with less neph sye, more wood ash/wild clay slip) on top of shino and the flashing slip, plus some tests of the flashing slip with higher percentages of copper carb. I also made a tile with the flashing slip plus ~3% black copper oxide.
I spent today loading the soda in the cold. (why is it cold again???)
I wish I had a little more work to fill the front; I’m certain it will be an uneven firing, but it’s the best I could do with what I had (and the time I had). I’m silly and forgot to take a full photo of the back stack before loading my big piece in, but it’s pretty tightly packed. I sprinkled my little wild clay rocks throughout and am excited to see how they look with the ash. I plan to candle overnight, fire through the afternoon and do a long downfire through the evening.
It took me a while to load my big piece in and figure out where I wanted it in the kiln. I really hope it doesn’t warp as bad as the other one did. It’s a lot lighter and more balanced. We shall see.
This week was really hard. I’m stressed and overwhelmed. But looking forward to sitting by the kiln all day tomorrow and slowing down, if only for a day. I’ve got another packed week ahead, preparing for my big trip out west. I’ve got a handful of pieces I need to make/finish for the wood firing at Cobb, plus some interviews, on top of regular work. I’m just trying to breathe through all the chaos and trust that everything that needs to happen will happen. And remind myself that it’s just art, and that there will be a time in my life where I won’t have to hustle all the time and will just be able to focus on clay and other things I love. (: